Rebel News Podcast - January 14, 2020


Maple Leaf Foods CEO's strange rant on “narcissist” Trump and the 63 Canadian killed by Iranian missile

Topics
Maple Leaf Foods CEO political rant carbon emissions in agriculture
Mentioned
Greta Thunberg Donald Trump Qasem Soleimani Mark Morano David Menzies Prince Harry Peter Sellers Meghan Markle Majid Johari Queen Ezra Kurush Chauncey Gardner Wallace Simpson Whatever Mueller George Monbiot Barack Obama Maple Leaf Schneider Vanessa and 3 more
Meghan Markle and Prince Harry give up the duties of the Royal Family while keeping all the benefits CBC's advertising revenues down 37% as ratings for Trudeau's state broadcaster plunge

Episode Stats


Length

35 minutes

Words per minute

158.76

Word count

5,640

Sentence count

495

Harmful content

Misogyny

9

sentences flagged

Toxicity

15

sentences flagged

Hate speech

16

sentences flagged


Summary

Summaries generated with gmurro/bart-large-finetuned-filtered-spotify-podcast-summ .

In a late night rant, Maple Leaf Foods CEO sides with Iran over Donald Trump. Is he trying to distract attention from something? It's January 13th, and this is the Ezra LeVant Show. Why would you hijack your meat company to go on a weird rant against Iran? It s got nothing to do with politics.

Transcript

Transcript generated with Whisper (turbo).
Misogyny classifications generated with MilaNLProc/bert-base-uncased-ear-misogyny .
Toxicity classifications generated with s-nlp/roberta_toxicity_classifier .
Hate speech classifications generated with facebook/roberta-hate-speech-dynabench-r4-target .
Topics generated with Qwen2.5-3B-Instruct.
Hosts, guests, and mentioned names generated with spaCy (en_core_web_sm), reconciled against Wikidata.
00:00:00.000 Hello, my friends. Today, I talk about Michael McCain's Sunday night Twitter rant against
00:00:06.440 Donald Trump and in support of Iran, or not really in support of Iran, but not criticizing them
00:00:13.560 either. It's very strange. I think the Sunday night part is the weirdest. I think it's a sign
00:00:19.860 that he was trying to sneak this through when no other executives could say, whoa, whoa, whoa,
00:00:24.680 whoa there, big guy. Go back to, you know, playing solitaire on your computer, whatever you
00:00:30.880 inheritors of the McCain family do in your third or fourth generation. Anyhow, I'll go through it.
00:00:36.580 I'll go through the tweets. I'll give you my point of view. I'm not impressed. Let me put it that way.
00:00:41.060 Before I get to the podcast, let me invite you to become a premium subscriber. It's eight bucks a
00:00:45.900 month. You get the video version, and I'm going to show you some videos from Iran, and I really want
00:00:50.820 you to see that. I know you might be listening to this podcast in a car or a subway or something
00:00:54.680 like that, but please consider getting the video version because I'm showing you stuff from Iran
00:00:59.420 I know you will not see on the CBC. Just go to premium.rebelnews.com, premium.rebelnews.com.
00:01:07.700 It's eight bucks a month. It's a bargain at twice the price. All right, here's the podcast.
00:01:20.820 Tonight, in a late night rant, Maple Leaf Foods CEO sides with Iran over Donald Trump. Is he trying
00:01:35.360 to distract attention from something? It's January 13th, and this is the Ezra LeVant Show.
00:01:42.700 Why should others go to jail when you're a biggest carbon consumer I know?
00:01:46.280 There's 8,500 customers here, and you won't give them an answer. The only thing I have to say to
00:01:51.960 the government about why I publish it is because it's my bloody right to do so.
00:02:01.600 Last night at around 8 p.m., the Twitter account of Maple Leaf Foods, you know, the meat company
00:02:08.380 that make sausages and chicken and cold cuts. Well, it served up a bit of baloney. It went on a
00:02:15.280 political rant against Donald Trump. I swear my first thought was, 8 p.m. on a Sunday night?
00:02:22.940 This has got to be some young social media intern gone rogue. You know, a kid who was maybe upset and
00:02:28.580 was going to quit anyways and went out with a bang. But I guess it's real because it's been
00:02:33.680 almost 24 hours and there hasn't been a sheepish statement from Maple Leaf Foods saying that they've
00:02:39.260 been hacked or anything. It's real. Let me read it for you.
00:02:44.260 I'm Michael McCain, CEO of Maple Leaf Foods, and these are my personal reflections. I am very angry,
00:02:54.100 and time isn't making me less angry. A Maple Leaf Foods colleague of mine lost his wife and family
00:02:59.540 this week to a needless, irresponsible series of events in Iran. He goes on, and I'll get to what 1.00
00:03:05.960 he said. Okay, so they're personal reflections. We're all entitled to personal reflections,
00:03:13.000 especially if the family of a friend of yours died. That's, I get it. But why are you making
00:03:20.240 personal reflections on a corporate account? Why are you using company resources, the company brand,
00:03:26.940 to go on a weird political rant, just because you're angry? Why don't, if you're really angry,
00:03:32.780 and I get it, why don't you write a letter to the editor of a newspaper in your own name?
00:03:38.040 Or call up a radio talk show? Or I don't know, if you're really serious, write a book or run for
00:03:43.320 public office. I mean, do something in your own name. Why are you using company resources,
00:03:48.860 Maple Leaf Foods, to send your political propaganda out there? You're a retail company.
00:03:55.540 You have customers who run the entire political spectrum. You sell a third of a billion dollars
00:04:00.660 worth of meat into the United States every year, too. So I'm going to guess that about half of that
00:04:05.780 is bought by Trump voters, and half is bought by non-Trump voters. How about you stay politically
00:04:11.640 neutral? Why would you hijack your meat company to go on a weird rant about Iran, no less? It's got
00:04:18.560 nothing to do with the company. I get it. His friend's family died. He says he lost a colleague,
00:04:23.720 or family of a colleague. That's upsetting, but how is that a matter for a meat company to discuss
00:04:30.360 on its corporate media? Let me read some more, because that was just the first of several tweets
00:04:35.700 in his late night rant. So the rant was long enough to span four tweets. So let me repeat the
00:04:41.380 last sentence of the previous one, and then read the rest. A Maple Leaf Foods colleague of mine lost his
00:04:46.460 wife and family this week to a needless, irresponsible series of events in Iran. 0.78
00:04:52.240 And I'll read the next three tweets together.
00:04:54.800 U.S. government leaders, unconstrained by checks and balances, concocted an ill-conceived plan
00:05:00.560 to divert focus from political woes. The world knows Iran is a dangerous state, but the world found 1.00
00:05:06.420 a path to contain it. Not perfect, but by most accounts, it was the right direction.
00:05:10.860 A narcissist in Washington tears world accomplishments apart, destabilizes region.
00:05:17.900 U.S. now unwelcomed everywhere in the area, including Iraq. Tensions escalated to feverish pitch,
00:05:24.880 taking out despicable military leader terrorists. There are a hundred like him standing next in line.
00:05:31.840 The collateral damage of this irresponsible, dangerous, ill-conceived behavior.
00:05:35.540 Sure. Sixty-three Canadians needlessly lost their lives in the crossfire, including the family of
00:05:41.160 one of my Maple Leaf Foods colleagues, his wife and 11-year-old son. We are mourning and I am livid!
00:05:47.820 Michael McCain.
00:05:51.780 So not a word against Iran or its dictatorship. No criticism for them. Not a word against the
00:05:58.500 Iranian military, which admits that it sent a missile and shot down their own civilian flight.
00:06:05.540 But he's ranting and raging against the United States. U.S. government leaders unconstrained
00:06:12.960 by checks and balances. What does that mean? The U.S. Congress is in hands of the Democratic Party.
00:06:19.560 Other institutions like the courts routinely strike down Trump's initiative. The media is almost
00:06:24.440 universally hostile to Trump. What does he mean by no checks and balances? And how could he criticize
00:06:29.380 America's democracy, the most robust in the world, arguably, without in the same breath commenting at
00:06:36.640 all on Iran's lack of democracy, on their tyranny? Or even throwing a mention to the thousands of 0.79
00:06:43.520 Iranians who have been marching against their terrorists and dictators at great personal risk.
00:06:49.640 But America, the great democracy, our great friend and neighbor, an ally, and Michael McCain's great
00:06:55.600 customer, they're the ones out of control. By the way, it wasn't a series of events that shot down
00:07:01.820 that plane. It was one event. A missile strike. Not this missile strike. This is the attack on Qasem 0.94
00:07:08.240 Soleimani. McCain claims the surgical strike that killed two people, two terrorists, the terrorist
00:07:15.020 general and his aide. He claims this attack was ill-conceived. But he doesn't say the Iranian
00:07:22.080 shooting missile of their own plane was ill-conceived. The attack on Qasem Soleimani actually seems
00:07:28.380 pretty well-conceived to me and pretty well-executed. Minimal loss of life. There was no collateral
00:07:34.180 casualties. They didn't blow up a house or an apartment block. It was so effective it stunned
00:07:39.560 the Ayatollahs. It sure stopped Iran and its militias from attacking American embassies anymore.
00:07:45.620 That's what precipitated this latest back and forth in the region. Iran's proxies in Iraq attacked
00:07:52.640 the U.S. embassy in Baghdad. That's what you're looking at here on the screen now.
00:07:56.840 They tried to smash their way in. They even spray-painted that terrorist name Qasem Soleimani.
00:08:03.820 They spray-painted it on the embassy. And Iran also killed a U.S. citizen shortly before that,
00:08:10.140 by the way, a U.S. contractor. So that's why Trump struck back at Qasem Soleimani. Don't you wish
00:08:16.520 Canada showed just a tiny bit of backbone, any backbone, when foreign powers kill or take our 0.91
00:08:21.620 citizens hostage, as China has done for 13 months now? I thought this line was weird. 0.67
00:08:25.620 U.S. now unwelcomed everywhere in the area, including Iraq. I mean, real question, how would
00:08:35.820 Michael McCain, son of privilege, lucky inheritor of a company that his father and grandfather built,
00:08:43.780 how would some spoiled silver spoon trust fund kid know who's welcome or not in Iraq or elsewhere?
00:08:49.940 How would he know? What he reads in some left-wing magazine once a month or what he watches on CNN?
00:08:56.700 Look, I'm not on the ground over there either. So I'm about as much an expert on Iran as Michael McCain is.
00:09:02.640 Actually, I might be a little bit more, frankly, because at least I follow the news for a living.
00:09:06.620 That's what I do. I'm not making sliced cold cuts for a living and just watching the news at night for half an hour.
00:09:12.740 But let me point out two anecdotes. Look at this here. Trump has been tweeting in the Persian language Farsi
00:09:20.500 directly to Iranians. Look at all these likes and retweets. He says he stands with the democracy protesters
00:09:29.280 and he warns the dictators not to attack those protesters. These tweets, I'm told, have become the most retweeted,
00:09:37.080 the most liked, the most shared tweets ever written in Farsi in the history of Twitter.
00:09:43.720 People over there in Iran are jubilant that for once the U.S. president isn't throwing them under the bus
00:09:49.880 like Barack Obama did. They're pretty pleased. They're pretty welcoming of Trump. But look at this.
00:09:55.340 This is very powerful in my mind. This, I don't know if you can understand what this is.
00:10:00.400 There's this weird thing they do in Iran and other Muslim countries sometimes. They paint American flags. 1.00
00:10:05.280 And you can see an Israeli flag here on the street so that you have to walk on them as a sign of
00:10:11.600 disrespect. Obviously, that's what it's meant. But we want to normalize hating Israel, hating America 0.95
00:10:17.620 and Iran. But as you can see here, and keep this running on a loop here. I want to show it one more
00:10:21.140 time. This is footage from a university in Iran where the authorities painted this on the ground.
00:10:25.540 But look at this. They're all walking around it. People are actually going to some effort to walk
00:10:32.720 around those flags, not to step on them. They're treating them as sort of, sort of sacred almost.
00:10:41.800 It's like they're all, like 95% of the people there are not stepping on the flags of Israel or
00:10:48.360 American. It's not like 10% or 20% of Iranians who seem to be pro-American or at least not anti-American.
00:10:55.820 In that university, I think that's from a university, it was like 90% of students were so respectful
00:11:03.920 of America and Israel, they weren't stepping on their flags. Have you ever heard of that
00:11:11.020 before? And there were chants in, in Tehran, not against America, but against Soleimani, the
00:11:19.900 dead terrorist general, and against the Ayatollahs. By the way, you could be arrested for chanting
00:11:24.640 against the Ayatollahs. These people were doing this at some risk. Now, there's a chance that this
00:11:29.900 Michael McCain character is exactly what he looks like, a spoiled rich kid who was given daddy's
00:11:36.320 company as an unearned inheritance. And his whole life, he was used to people sucking up to him and 0.88
00:11:42.580 just saying yes to him, no matter what he said. You know, it's, no one ever properly said no to him.
00:11:49.960 No one had the courage to say no to him. Maybe he'd fire you if you said no to him. And now he's treating
00:11:54.300 Maple Leaf Foods, the company, like, I don't know, something else on there. Like maybe his
00:11:59.600 dad gave him a sports car when he was 16 and he was going to speed and crash it and wrap it around
00:12:03.920 a tree because he didn't have to earn the money to pay for that car himself. He doesn't have to
00:12:07.900 take care of things. He's a narcissist, as many sons of billionaires can be. It's tough, I'm sure,
00:12:13.560 being the son of a billionaire. So maybe no one's ever told him no.
00:12:17.980 But blaming Trump for the shooting down of an airliner is bizarre. It wasn't a series of events.
00:12:25.580 It was one rocket fired by Iran's military. Iran admitted they did it. Tehran is very far away.
00:12:32.340 Look at Tehran on the right-hand side there. And look at those red dots where the rockets attack
00:12:37.200 were. Tehran is extremely far from any possible battle with the Americans. Remember what happened
00:12:44.360 in revenge for Soleimani's killing? Iran lobbed a bunch of rockets at those Iraqi air bases where
00:12:49.400 Americans are stationed very far from Tehran where they shot down the plane that was taking off. I'm
00:12:54.360 sorry. I do not believe that it was an accident. Michael McCain not only believes it was an accident,
00:13:01.180 he's actually blaming Trump for it. Now maybe he's just passionate because a friend's family died.
00:13:08.420 I get it. I wish McCain had been as passionate about everyone who's killed by accident.
00:13:14.020 And I don't know if you know what I mean, but a few years ago, 23 Canadians died from listeria,
00:13:21.960 a bacterial infection in maple leaf foods cold cuts a few years ago under Michael McCain's watch.
00:13:30.480 Maybe if you spent a bit less time watching CNN and a bit more time, you know, working,
00:13:37.660 I don't know, maybe those 23 people would be alive now. Maybe not.
00:13:40.600 You know, McCain fought those victims, the ones who survived and the families of those who died. He
00:13:46.940 fought them in court for years. And according to this Toronto Star article,
00:13:51.580 after fighting them in court for years, he finally paid out, well, in the case of Walter
00:13:57.060 Mueller who survived, $697.34. That's how much Michael McCain paid his victims.
00:14:07.260 Yeah, you can't blame that one on Trump or the Iranians. That's on Michael McCain. Imagine
00:14:12.920 poisoning your customers, God forbid, and then fighting them in court for years and then settling
00:14:20.040 for less than 700 bucks each, which is probably what one hour's worth of what he pays his lawyer.
00:14:27.280 He spent more on lawyers, I'm sure, than he did on the people he poisoned.
00:14:30.600 Listen, I'm not quite sure I'm ready for moral lectures from Michael McCain.
00:14:38.120 When I checked the stock price of Maple Leaf Foods today, it was down about 2%. It was hopping up and
00:14:44.180 down a bit during the day. Maybe it'll come back up. Maybe it'll fall further. Who knows?
00:14:48.280 I don't know if this is because of McCain's rant. I don't know.
00:14:51.380 I don't think the stock would fall because of what he said. The fact that he hates Trump
00:14:56.760 probably has very little effect on his company. I think most Americans won't hear about it and
00:15:03.320 they won't link it to the various Maple Leaf brands like Swift and Schneider's and Shopsies and
00:15:10.080 you know, all these other menus you see here. I don't think people even know what's Maple Leaf
00:15:14.780 meat. So I don't think there's going to be a consumer boycott or anything. I just don't think so.
00:15:18.940 Maybe I'm wrong. But I think a lot of serious investors, forget about people who eat meat,
00:15:26.600 but investors like banks, like people who buy shares by the million, they might say, hang on,
00:15:32.820 hang on. Is this bad judgment guy, this guy who can't control his emotions, this guy who does this
00:15:39.980 on a Sunday night so there's no one around to stop him, this guy who uses corporate resources to
00:15:45.520 scratch his personal itches? Is this the guy who's really in charge of our multi-billion dollar
00:15:51.360 company? We're investing in his judgment? You know, out of curiosity, I went through Maple Leaf Foods'
00:15:59.500 last annual report. They made money last year. They sure did. Absolutely they did. I went through the
00:16:05.520 financials and like I say, they're in the black to make a profit. But if Michael McCain had a different
00:16:11.800 last name, I'm pretty sure he'd be fired immediately. Let me quote from his own letter
00:16:18.760 to shareholders. Adjusted operating earnings of $215.6 million were $48.2 million or 18.3%
00:16:29.940 below the prior year. Which is disappointing, guys. I'm a little disappointed. I lost your $48
00:16:37.640 million. Sorry. Oh, you think, eh? An 18% drop in profit is disappointing? Well, not for him. I mean,
00:16:45.920 hell, he's going to inherit, what, half a billion dollars? This is just him playing around, his dad
00:16:50.180 keeping him busy. He's angry about Iran. He says he can't control his emotions. And maybe he can be
00:16:57.660 forgiven if the ayatollahs killed one of his colleague's family. I get it. Let's not be so hard 0.86
00:17:03.840 on him for his feelings. But what about his actions? What about what he's doing with his
00:17:10.880 company? That's my point today. I went through the company Twitter feed. Just look. Scroll faster.
00:17:17.320 Dozens and dozens and dozens of tweets about global warming? You're talking about carbon neutrality?
00:17:26.440 Really? He just won't shut up about it. I'm serious. Look at him. There he is. He's posing.
00:17:33.200 So handsome. Just ask him. He won't shut up about global warming. Sorry, bud. You are in the pig
00:17:41.280 and cow business. They emit emissions. They burp and fart, to be plain about it. Sorry to use those words.
00:17:52.100 But food, agriculture, animals, livestock is a major source of carbon emissions.
00:17:58.820 Because animals and food, that's the stuff of life. And we live in a carbon-based world.
00:18:03.660 And we're carbon-based life forms. And we eat carbon-based food like
00:18:07.340 pigs and beef. So that's going to be that way if you're in the meat business.
00:18:12.900 Maybe if Michael McCain spent more time running the company
00:18:15.980 and less time running his mouth, he wouldn't be failing at his job.
00:18:20.960 Here's a little disclaimer hidden away in the fine print in his annual report.
00:18:27.280 I think this is on page 17. It said,
00:18:30.300 To maintain its reputation with consumers and to support its sustainability strategy.
00:18:36.580 That's what he was tweeting about.
00:18:39.000 The company may consider it necessary to voluntarily adopt more aggressive greenhouse gas
00:18:44.860 and carbon emission reduction initiatives, the cost of which may not be recovered in the selling price
00:18:51.900 of its products, unquote.
00:18:54.080 In other words, Michael McCain is out there spouting off about global warming and Iran
00:19:00.260 and whatever else he feels that day.
00:19:03.020 But the company's accountants are warning shareholders, 0.81
00:19:07.480 if customers ever took this buffoon seriously
00:19:11.220 and expected Maple Leaf Foods to actually walk the walk, 0.90
00:19:16.840 the cost could devastate the company.
00:19:19.880 That's what that language means on page 17 of his annual report.
00:19:24.320 Sounds like Michael McCain understands global warming almost as much as he understands Iran
00:19:31.600 and terrorism and foreign policy.
00:19:35.220 Oh, well, I hope it all works out for him.
00:19:37.800 I saw this on the UK Foreign Office website.
00:19:41.660 Importing pork products isn't allowed in Iran.
00:19:46.180 Iran, you can't sell pork there.
00:19:49.020 You can't export it there like you do to America. 0.91
00:19:52.100 So just speaking as a friend of Maple Leaf Foods and quite a consumer,
00:19:57.020 maybe McCain should spend less time disparaging his American customers
00:20:02.320 and more time just doing some work.
00:20:06.280 Stay with us for more.
00:20:19.080 Hey, welcome back.
00:20:20.100 Well, I just checked the weather.
00:20:22.100 And in Stockholm, Sweden, the thermometer is hovering around the freezing mark.
00:20:28.400 No surprise, Sweden is a northern country, not unlike Canada.
00:20:33.320 And it gets cold there.
00:20:35.380 Nonetheless, climate kid Greta Thunberg has tweeted that it's time that the world
00:20:41.680 abandon fossil fuels right now.
00:20:45.160 You can see this tweet she made.
00:20:46.580 We don't want these things done by 2050, 2030, or even 2021.
00:20:50.740 We want this done now.
00:20:52.380 Right now.
00:20:53.800 It's almost like a caricature of a teenage tantrum,
00:21:00.560 which, in fact, it exactly is.
00:21:02.800 Joining us now via Skype from the Washington area is our friend Mark Morano,
00:21:06.960 the boss of ClimateDepot.com and a real Greta skeptic just like us.
00:21:11.460 Mark, great to see you again.
00:21:13.360 Good to see you, Ezra.
00:21:14.260 Happy to be here.
00:21:15.120 Well, you know, there are some places in the world where I suppose you wouldn't freeze to death
00:21:19.760 without fossil fuels.
00:21:21.280 Stockholm, Sweden, one of the most northerly capitals in the world, ain't one of them.
00:21:25.900 I don't know.
00:21:28.300 Does anyone take the climate kid seriously, or is that the whole point?
00:21:32.200 It's not meant to be thought about.
00:21:33.880 It's just meant to be felt.
00:21:36.060 And her target are kids anyways who maybe don't think these things through.
00:21:41.600 Well, I think too many people take her seriously.
00:21:44.560 I don't know if you saw the other corresponding story with Greta right now
00:21:47.920 is there was a glitch in Facebook coding where people were able to find out
00:21:51.840 that not only her father was making posts in her name on Facebook,
00:21:55.980 and Greta's saying he was just simply reposting stuff from her Twitter account,
00:21:59.580 which she claims to run.
00:22:00.920 But a UN activist from the UN had access to her Facebook account
00:22:05.540 and was posting stuff as well.
00:22:07.840 I mean, there's...
00:22:08.660 So a lot of people take a lot of stock in what she says,
00:22:12.320 and there's a lot of powerful people behind what she says.
00:22:15.480 And what she's saying is utter and complete nonsense,
00:22:19.040 talking about, you know, we need to get rid of fossil fuels now
00:22:22.240 because of the planetary climate crisis.
00:22:25.000 You know, since 1980, the last 40 years,
00:22:27.240 we've had radical increases in global consumption of fossil fuels,
00:22:31.260 40% in oil, up more than 100% in both natural gas. 0.97
00:22:34.420 It's just incredible how someone could say something so ignorant 0.70
00:22:39.980 but be taken so seriously. 0.69
00:22:41.860 Being there with Peter Sellers, that film comes to mind,
00:22:45.140 where he was the gardener, Chauncey Gardner,
00:22:47.220 and just said the most inane things,
00:22:48.860 and everyone just thought it was brilliant.
00:22:51.040 You know, that's a great analogy.
00:22:52.980 I remember that movie with Peter Sellers, the gardener, 0.97
00:22:56.380 where he would just say literally the dumbest things, 0.96
00:22:59.420 like, first comes winter, then comes spring. 0.98
00:23:05.860 And everyone would say, oh, he means this, he means this,
00:23:09.440 he's brilliant.
00:23:10.160 It was a very, very funny movie.
00:23:13.140 I remember the one that was a great Peter Sellers.
00:23:16.140 But, well, let me switch gears a little bit.
00:23:17.980 I mean, I don't want to pick on Greta too much
00:23:20.860 because, as you pointed out, she's like a ventriloquist's dummy, 0.57
00:23:24.900 and it's the handlers that we need to focus at.
00:23:28.220 Focusing on her is, in fact, a form of misdirection.
00:23:31.660 It's a sleight of hand for the UN and her dad
00:23:35.040 and other sort of managers.
00:23:36.680 They want you to look at Greta so you don't look behind Greta.
00:23:40.940 And she serves as that human shield. 0.80
00:23:43.120 How dare you attack a teenage girl?
00:23:46.660 Every time I even do a post that's mildly critical all over Twitter,
00:23:50.320 oh, you must have nothing better to do.
00:23:51.640 All you're doing is attacking a teenage.
00:23:53.380 She must really threaten you. 0.98
00:23:54.660 It's like, no.
00:23:55.880 She's being constantly thrown in everyone's face 0.93
00:23:58.400 as some kind of expert. 0.93
00:23:59.920 So, actually, it's the silliest thing.
00:24:02.360 But that's what her role is, is to be a human shield. 0.98
00:24:05.280 Now, we've seen Greta and her parents wear Antifa T-shirts.
00:24:13.000 And Antifa is a little bit different in different countries in the world.
00:24:17.040 In continental Europe, it can be extremely violent.
00:24:20.440 And we've seen increasing Antifa violence in the United States too.
00:24:24.340 Portland, Oregon is probably the worst.
00:24:27.040 We've even seen some Antifa crimes in Canada recently.
00:24:32.360 In fact, a Syrian migrant, a Syrian refugee,
00:24:35.300 was charged with crimes at a Maxime Bernier event
00:24:38.100 for a protest in Hamilton.
00:24:42.580 I think there's a blur between Antifa and climate kid Greta Thunberg.
00:24:50.160 We saw the T-shirts.
00:24:51.920 But her shock troops, her street gangs, if I can use that phrase,
00:24:55.820 Extinction Rebellion, which blocks bridges, blocks roads.
00:25:00.480 I haven't seen outright violence by them.
00:25:03.720 I understand they were briefly listed in the United Kingdom as an extremist group.
00:25:09.500 Can you tell us a bit more about that?
00:25:11.860 Yeah, the government in the UK, actually, you know, here's the thing.
00:25:14.860 Now, the media and a lot of the activists are spinning it.
00:25:17.600 We're not a terror organization.
00:25:19.540 We shouldn't be.
00:25:20.040 All they did is they listed them as a political, you know, a disruptive force in UK
00:25:26.180 that the police should have on their watch list for the potential of violence.
00:25:29.900 Completely reasonable thing to do.
00:25:32.220 But, as you can imagine, Ezra, reasonable things in today's political climate are not met well.
00:25:37.160 The UK Guardian, others came up with all kinds of defenses.
00:25:40.480 You know, politically left-wing MPs got involved, and the police suddenly had to remove their name from the list,
00:25:49.120 Extinction Rebellion, despite the fact that what they do is complete disruption in the U.S. here.
00:25:54.440 We've had complete traffic jam chaos done here.
00:25:57.400 They've tried to disrupt football games.
00:25:59.380 They have disrupted football games.
00:26:01.480 They disrupt Black Friday events.
00:26:03.600 They continue to do this.
00:26:05.320 You're going to get people angry, upset, cause traffic jams, accidents, and there's going to be inevitable violence.
00:26:11.500 Police should be alerted that this is an extreme group, not a terror group.
00:26:16.080 Now, obviously, there's differences here, but you can't have those kind of subtleties.
00:26:20.500 In the UK, it looks like, and I'm not an expert on UK politics at the moment,
00:26:24.100 but it looks like the police have backed down and are removing their name.
00:26:27.440 Yeah.
00:26:27.780 You know, you made me remember a scene from a few months ago.
00:26:30.920 I did a show on it, but I want to remind our viewers, a lot of people in London take the tube, take the subway.
00:26:39.260 Yes.
00:26:39.640 It really is one of the better ways to get around, because that's such a traffic jammed city. 0.76
00:26:43.960 It's ridiculous.
00:26:44.960 The train is usually faster than a car. 0.54
00:26:47.520 So you'll see working class people and upper class people on a train.
00:26:51.920 It's just, it's like Manhattan that way.
00:26:53.460 Um, so in the morning rush hour, some Extinction Rebellion leftists got on the roof of a train.
00:27:04.620 And they had some protest while other Extinction Rebellion types filmed it.
00:27:11.160 And they were keeping this real crowd.
00:27:14.700 They were shutting down this line, and it was jammed.
00:27:17.300 And these people had to go to work.
00:27:19.060 And some of them could maybe afford to be late, but others would have been fired.
00:27:22.820 I mean, if you were late for your work, they don't care.
00:27:24.780 They would say, oh, that's an excuse.
00:27:26.300 Come earlier next time.
00:27:27.580 So the crowd, and it looked like a very working class crowd, was so angry, 1.00
00:27:33.040 they started physically grabbing at the Extinction Rebellion types,
00:27:38.120 who started saying, oh, sorry, this isn't targeting you.
00:27:41.400 Here, let me show you a quick clip.
00:27:42.640 This is from a show I did a few months ago.
00:27:44.860 Take a look at this.
00:27:45.520 This is from a show I did a few months ago.
00:28:15.520 That's just incredible.
00:28:18.280 I think that it's one thing to live out your role-playing exercise of a hero
00:28:25.000 in the pages of The Guardian and The New York Times.
00:28:27.900 But these real-life people were being stopped from taking transit,
00:28:33.100 and they weren't going to have any of it.
00:28:35.360 I think that shows the divide between real-life, ordinary people
00:28:39.880 and these climate elites who would never have their air flights delayed.
00:28:47.800 They'd be outraged if they're delayed in a flight.
00:28:49.880 Yeah.
00:28:49.980 But they're happy to tell the little people how to live. 1.00
00:28:53.460 They are.
00:28:54.120 Now, keep in mind, George Monbiot, the U.K. environmentalist, he's a guru to Greta Thunberg.
00:28:59.040 He's called for the overthrow of capitalism, big in Extinction Rebellion.
00:29:02.400 They've done dye.
00:29:07.060 They've sprayed on government buildings in Europe, vandalism.
00:29:11.480 So they're willing to go, and they seem to be pushing the envelope.
00:29:14.660 So this is something, as you mentioned, it's like shouting fire in a crowded theater.
00:29:18.280 This is going to cause chaos and violence.
00:29:20.980 Therefore, U.K. police, it should be on their list of groups to watch for when they're holding a protest.
00:29:26.680 It's a perfectly reasonable public safety issue.
00:29:29.780 But that is out the window now because of our sensitivity to the climate crisis.
00:29:36.300 Well, I've got one thing to say to the Climate Extinction Rebellion folks.
00:29:42.000 Don't try that subway trick in Texas.
00:29:46.840 In America, where they're a little bit better armed and a little bit more jealous of their freedoms,
00:29:54.360 I don't think that that power move would work out too well in Dallas, for example.
00:29:59.480 Last word to you, Mark.
00:30:00.200 That was one of the things.
00:30:01.100 In the U.S., they did a football game.
00:30:03.380 It was the Harvard-Yale halftime.
00:30:05.540 They delayed the whole game.
00:30:06.480 I think it was the Extinction Rebellion or the Sunrise Movement.
00:30:09.320 It may have been a collaboration of both.
00:30:11.260 But people were saying, hey, why don't you go to a Philadelphia Eagles game or a Green Bay Packers game
00:30:15.740 and delay the game and go to a playoff game and do that and see how civil and cordial the crowd will be
00:30:21.720 as you're out there with your inane slogans screaming about fossil fuel use and the alleged climate crisis.
00:30:29.560 Yeah, the Harvard-Yale game, I mean, I'm sure they didn't like it much, but probably less rowdy.
00:30:34.900 It reminds me of in Alberta, my home province, where some animal rights extremists,
00:30:40.200 they targeted a turkey farm run by a pacifist Christian denomination called Hatterites
00:30:46.520 because they knew if they went to any other farm, they'd leave full of shotgun pellets.
00:30:52.480 They're not very courageous, these folks.
00:30:54.740 Well, I hope they do get the appropriate label.
00:30:58.140 And it seems a bit odd to me that political pressure is enough to make police label or unlabel someone extremist.
00:31:06.040 Either they are a threat or they aren't.
00:31:08.360 And some Twitter reaction isn't the determinant of that.
00:31:11.500 Mark, we'll have to keep our eyes on these things.
00:31:13.120 Thanks for taking the time with us today.
00:31:15.700 No problem. Thank you, Ezra. Appreciate it.
00:31:17.560 That's our friend Mark Morano, the boss of ClimateDepot.com.
00:31:20.660 Stay with us.
00:31:21.200 More ahead on the topic.
00:31:21.800 Hey, welcome back on my monologue Friday about Meghan Markle and Prince Harry.
00:31:34.180 Vanessa writes,
00:31:35.740 Meghan Markle ruined her own family and now she's ruining the royal family. 0.99
00:31:40.500 I saw a statement by the Queen today that refers to Harry and Meghan, not Prince.
00:31:48.200 There's no titles.
00:31:49.100 I thought that, the Queen said, we're still working this through, give us a few days.
00:31:54.700 But there were no titles.
00:31:56.420 Not their royal highnesses or whatever, not Prince this, Princess that, just Harry and Meghan.
00:32:01.980 I like the sounds of that.
00:32:05.340 Rhea writes, the entitlement is out of control.
00:32:07.960 I hope the Queen cuts her off. 0.93
00:32:10.160 Well, her and him.
00:32:12.420 You know, I told you the story about Wallace Simpson who got her claws into King Edward.
00:32:19.840 And she didn't wind up that bad.
00:32:21.680 Spent a lot of time in America.
00:32:22.860 Went to the Bahamas, which of course is close to Florida.
00:32:25.760 So being the wife of the governor of Bahamas, that's not a bad way to live your life. 0.99
00:32:30.580 If you've ever been there, it's pretty gorgeous.
00:32:32.140 But I think the royal family is like target number one in the world for grifters.
00:32:40.100 I think Harry was a pretty good egg.
00:32:43.380 You know, any royal family member who serves in the military for an extended period of time,
00:32:49.080 I think he did two tours of duty in Afghanistan.
00:32:51.320 How can you not admire that?
00:32:53.020 I think he was just targeted by this serial grifter gold digger.
00:33:00.640 And she is who she is, and he is a target.
00:33:05.520 And if she will truly pry him away from her family, I think the Queen's got to cut him off. 0.56
00:33:12.260 Cut him off.
00:33:12.740 Cut off the title. 0.95
00:33:13.580 That's all she wants.
00:33:14.400 She'll dump him soon enough.
00:33:17.340 On David Menzies' videos on Majid Johari, Kurush writes,
00:33:21.820 Well, Kurush, thank you for writing from Iran.
00:33:49.600 And that's interesting that our video is seen that far away.
00:33:53.740 That video did quite well.
00:33:56.100 For those of you who didn't see it, maybe I should put it on the show.
00:33:59.260 It's on our YouTube channel.
00:34:00.540 David went to a vigil for the killed terrorists, Qasem Soleimani.
00:34:07.240 It was crazy.
00:34:08.200 David also went to try and track down Majid Johari, liberal MP for Richmond Hill.
00:34:13.480 Now, we don't have any evidence.
00:34:14.960 I want to put this on the record because there's an allegation from Iran
00:34:18.540 that Majid Johari, the liberal MP from Richmond Hill, is on the payroll of the government of Iran.
00:34:23.420 I have not seen any evidence to that effect.
00:34:25.720 I've heard the accusation.
00:34:27.240 And we've seen other media reports that he is an asset of Iran.
00:34:31.580 But we have no evidence that he was paid.
00:34:34.240 But I tell you, he's certainly giving great service to Iran.
00:34:37.540 And he's hiding right now from every journalist, including from our own David Menzies.
00:34:43.580 Well, we're not going to stop reporting on this subject.
00:34:45.220 It's very interesting times.
00:34:47.060 And of all the countries in the Middle East that are under the yoke of radical Islam, 0.99
00:34:51.200 I think Iran is the one with the most potential to recover and be a modern, secular, educated, progressive, peaceful, prosperous country.
00:35:00.820 Certainly not Afghanistan.
00:35:03.280 And I wouldn't bet on anything in Iraq. 0.75
00:35:06.440 And Syria is a pile of rubble right now. 0.85
00:35:08.900 Egypt is poor.
00:35:10.620 But Iran, there's a little bit of hope there. 1.00
00:35:13.660 What do you think of that video of the students refusing to walk on the American and Israeli flags?
00:35:19.720 That's incredible.
00:35:21.140 You wouldn't get that deference at an American university.
00:35:25.380 Well, that's our show for today.
00:35:26.460 Until tomorrow, on behalf of all of us here at Rebel World Headquarters, good night and keep fighting for freedom.